


Just Breathe

by Powderpuff



Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, Future Fic, Growing Up, Heart Attacks, Sick Character, Tina is at the helm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 12:05:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14355102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Powderpuff/pseuds/Powderpuff
Summary: Belchers-from the womb to the tomb.That phrase sounds a lot more relevant these days.When Bob has a heart attack, Tina tries to keep it all together for her family, because she's the oldest and it's her responsibility.Responsibility sucks.





	Just Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> So there is possibly OOCness occurring here, but I tried to keep them all fairly in character. Tina is shockingly difficult, honestly. But I do think she'd give up a lot for her family, so I tried to channel that. I have a lot of feelings about their family dynamics, and they just all love each other so damn much!  
> The "refrigerated cocoon" actually exists, except it's more like a blanket that drops the body temperature to around 32C after a heart attack to preserve brain function.  
> Also hints of Zeke and Tina, because OTP and I want everyone to be happy.

Tina Belcher is eighteen when her world implodes on itself.

She’s at school, grimly working on math homework that she just can’t quite get, when she’s called to the principal’s office.

“It’s probably Louise.” she sighs at Jimmy Jr’s look, hauls her lanky frame out of her desk, and heads up to the office, sure Louise has caused some kind of mayhem. Principal Lemming had given up on calling the Belcher parents once he learned that a long stare from Tina had the same effect as any of Linda’s reprimands or Bob’s despairs. Really, it saves everyone a lot of time.

Sure enough, Louise is there. But so is Gene, and so is Linda-and Tina’s heart freezes at the look on her mother’s face, at how Linda Belcher looks _old._

“Your father had a heart attack.” Linda says, like she can’t quite grasp it, and she’s shaking, and Tina’s frozen, and Louise looks terrified, and Gene’s shocked- “He’s at the hospital, they’ve got some kind of contraption to keep his body cool so there’s-there’s minimum damage-get your things kids, we’re going- “

 

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

And Tina forces herself to move, to collect her stuff and be blind to the questioning glances Jimmy Jr and Zeke throw her way, there’s sympathy in the teacher’s eyes that Tina doesn’t see because _Daddy_ and Tina’s not letting herself process just yet, she leaves and goes to her locker and cleans it out because she doesn’t know when she’ll be back, and then she’s in the car and all three are squished illegally in the front seat where Linda is driving just a bit too recklessly, and then they are at the hospital and the ICU and the special cardiac ward, and there’s doctors and nurses and they are talking to Linda and Tina knows she should listen because it’s important but Daddy’s in a hospital bed with a mess of tubes and a weird blue cocoon and he’s grey and Tina _can’t,_ she _can’t,_ but Louise is breaking and Gene is shaking and Linda’s talking to the doctor about options and treatment plans-so Tina pulls herself together and grips her siblings tight and says nothing, because she’s the oldest and has Added Responsibilities.

 

 _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._ They need you to be strong.

 

The four of them curl up on the one lone sleeping couch that night, and the hospital staff let them, even though there’s a rule about visiting hours, and rules about how many spend the night. But the Belchers look so grey and tired, and so incredibly broken, that they all stay.

 

 It’s a hard week. Money’s tight, so the restaurant can’t stay closed long.  Gene and Tina ‘man the fort’ while Linda and Louise stay at the hospital, with quick visits home to shower and eat. They’ve decided, without needing to vocalize, that Linda’s got the right, and Louise is so much a Daddy’s girl despite being more like Mom, and she’s still the baby, so she gets to fall apart. The oldest Belcher kids swallow back their misery and pain, cook and clean, and don’t notice when Teddy and Mort tip a bit more than they need to, Aunt Gayle stops by a little more frequently (she’s on different medication again, and it’s helping, but she knows she isn’t quite better enough for this), or when Marshmallow brings her friends a bit more often, or when the One Eyed Snakes stop by to be raucously, noisily sympathetic. They do notice how Mr. Fischoeder gives them a bit of leeway on the rent, though, and their gratitude is palpable. And if Gene’s maybe a little longer in the fridge then he needs to be sometimes, and he and Tina take to sleeping in the living room-well.

 

 _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._ A mantra, a chant, a constant reminder to hold it together.

 

Linda gives updates, but they amount to very little beyond “He’s stable”, “possibly very little brain damage” and other neutral words, mixed in with long technical diatribes about the refrigerated coma Bob’s in, the state of Ginger’s cat, and Aunt Gayle’s budding relationship with a circus clown. No one really cares, but it forces a veneer of normalcy. Linda looks a little frantic, and she needs this from them.

 

Tina decides that they’ve got to start thinking of the future. If dad…

 

if dad…

 

well, if he doesn’t get better then some decisions will have to be made. And when _-if-_ she has to be realistic here-so if he does get better, he’ll have to take it easy, and mom can’t handle it alone.

Tina knows she isn’t the smartest of her siblings, She’s not the smartest or the most charismatic, not the most energetic or the most outgoing-but of all of them she is most like dad.

She leaves Gene on a slow hour after the lunch rush and withdraws from high school. It nearly kills her to do it, and the principal tries to talk her out of it, but she does it anyway because in her bones she knows she has no choice.

 

 _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._ It’s her responsibility. He family needs her. It’s the right choice.

 

She runs into Tammy, Zeke, Jimmy Jr, and Jocelyn on her way out.

“Uh, hi.” She offers. Her heart’s not in it, but it’s polite. She hasn’t seen much of them- Gene told them about dad one day when they came in to ask what the deal was, but Tina was in the back grilling, and acting like she was holding it together.

“How’s your dad?” Zeke inquires, nervous.

“Yeah, like, are you okay?” Jocelyn means to be kind. She isn’t, but she tries.

Jimmy Jr says nothing. He’s wary of that look behind Tina’s eyes; the one that threatens but never quite makes it. He’s seen the look before in other people, seen it in himself, when he lost his mom a few years back. Tina’s on an edge, and she’s his friend, so he says nothing and hopes it’s alright.

Tina gives a forced smile. “He’s stable, which is good. It’s good he’s stable. It’s good. No change is good. Unless it’s better. That would be good. It would be better for him to be better. Ha.” Tina is shaking. She pushes it back. She isn’t ready, not here and not now. When the moment comes, she’ll deal then. For now it’s one day at a time. “I-I have to go, Gene’s terrible on the grill. Goodbye.” And she bolts like a spooked animal.

“She is, like, so not okay.” says Tammy. Her voice is edged with sympathy.

“This is, like, so sad.” agrees Jocelyn. “I hope her dad gets better.”

Jimmy and Zeke say nothing, because there is nothing to say. Jimmy Jr lost his mom, and Zeke’s got four sets of parents and a brother he doesn’t know, and none of them really know Zeke either, and he wonders if, if it was his parent, whether he’d look the way Tina does. He’s a little envious that the question would never occur to her.

But when Tammy and Jocelyn make the Belchers a bunch of hideous friendship bracelets, both boys help, and they all spend a day making various dishes and sending them across the way so no one has to cook. Linda calls them sweet, Gene is tired and grateful, Louise says nothing because she’s too wrapped up in this for any other thoughts, because she’s fourteen and is taking it harder than any of them. And they let her, because Louise is still just a kid. (They all are, really, but they'll grow up so she doesn't have to.)

Tina says a very polite thank you, wears the bracelets constantly. They will survive this, because they have others and they have each other.

 

 _Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._ They’ll get through this, one way or another.

 

It takes a week and a half for them to declare Bob “on the mend.” By which they mean he’ll live-the state of his brain is still questionable, but it’s state-of-the-art treatment, lots of heart attack survivors make it with 80% mental faculty, Tina, Tina Dad’s going _to live-_

And it is then, right then, that Tina allows herself to break.

           

Breathing is a whole lot easier without that weight on her chest.

 

“So you kids can go back to school next week!” beams Linda. They are all sitting at the table, except Bob, who is kind of awake and aware now, out of danger, and Linda feels safe in leaving him for longer than an hour or two, coming home and running the place again. She feels bad for letting her kids do so much emotional labour in this, but between Bobby and Louise she had been stretched thin as it was. “You’ve been getting your homework, right?”

Gene nods. Tina, however, looks guilty. She hadn’t actually told anybody about dropping out. That may have been a mistake.

“Tina, what’s wrong? You look a little pale, sweetie. Are you getting sick?” Linda is concerned. Maybe it had been too much.

“Actually, Mom, I-I dropped out.” Tina winced at the look on her mother’s face. “I thought-well, whatever happened-I thought I should be here.”

Louise blinks at her older sister. “Whoa, T. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“You’re telling me. Why didn’t you say something?” demands Gene.

He looks a little hurt, and Tina is apologetic. “I didn’t want you to try and talk me out of it, and then I forgot I didn’t tell you. Sorry Gene.”

Linda takes a very long look at her daughter. She wants to protest, because Tina should graduate at the least, that’s important-but at the same time, she’s right, because Linda can’t keep the place afloat on her own, and Bob’s not going to be working for a while. She feels incredibly guilty, and incredibly grateful, and incredibly proud.

“Well, at least look at distance classes, okay sweetie? You should at least get something. We’ll talk about it with your dad. Did I tell you about the weird man in the hospital?”

“Don’t talk about dad that way,” clips Gene, and they all laugh and stay up far too late, eventually all falling asleep on the couch during a _Golden Girls_ marathon. 

Jimmy Jr and Zeke stop by the next day and Tina gives the news-that her Dad’ll be home in less than a week, that they think he’ll still have most of his mental faculties, that everything will be okay.

“Well that’s great T-bird! So y’all coming back to school soon?” Zeke’s delighted about the whole thing- Mr. B being better, Gene and Tina coming back, and if his heart flutters at the bracelet on her wrist, the one he made, well, it’s okay now, right?

“Yeah Tina, when are you coming back?” Jimmy Jr is relieved, because that look’s finally gone from Tina’s eyes and his friend has come back to herself a bit more. He’s excited to go back to complaining about college, about music, about the future of Wonder Warf’s ferris wheel after some guy lost his hand from it.

Tina’s eyes slide away from them. “I-I’m not going back. I’m going to work here, and help mom and dad out.”

The two boys are stunned. Zeke lets out a low whistle. “Damn girl, you serious? Thought you wanted to go to school in Portland or whatever.”

Tina shrugs. “Someone has to do it. I’m the oldest.”

Her logic is hard to argue with, but the boys feel bad for her anyway, and Tammy and Jocelyn are horrified and make her a little cross stitch of the Portland skyline, because Tina very badly had wanted to go, because they are better than they let themselves be.

Her dad doesn’t take it so well.

“Tina, you have to graduate. Even I graduated. Your mom and I will be fine.” He glares from the hospital bed, still a little pale and way too thin.

He’s wrong, and they all know he’s wrong, so Tina doesn’t respond, just pushes his lentil salad at him and goes back to thinking of veggie burgers that weren’t awful, so they could diversify the menu a bit- maybe a whole “heart-healthy” section that didn’t taste like oversalted grass.  They could maybe do salads too, beyond the standard “garden”; maybe a salad of the day to go along with the burger of the day? She’ll talk to the family about it, because she can, she can run things by her dad, roll her eyes at his dumb jokes, groan over having to wash the grill, argue about school, and a million other things, because Tina still has a _dad,_ and it makes her giddy sometimes.

He isn’t entirely well, however. They let him come home that week, but he spends another week in the apartment before he comes downstairs (and well, if Linda and the kids rotate on checking on him every half an hour or so, they can’t be blamed, not really.) When he is allowed down, Bob spends a large chunk of time at the counter, talking to Teddy and Mort rather than behind the grill. (Teddy’s thrilled, and Mort makes offcolour jokes about him seeing Bob vertical, and all’s right in the world.)

They ease him back into work slowly, but it’s a months long process. Tina’s “heart-healthy” menu is a pretty good success, considering, and nets them a good review in a foodie magazine. Louise senses a business opportunity and begins looking for other ways to net the foodie crowd-local vegetables, organic, grassfed beef, even a small breakfast menu. (And if Tina begins to hiss before she’s had her morning espresso, well, the girl’s deserved it, with all she’s done.) They even get a second chalkboard, and Gene and Linda write little songs on it, take requests. Bob’s not thrilled, exactly, but he’s happy to still be around to be thrilled, or not thrilled, as the case may be.

He’s still incredibly not thrilled that Tina hasn’t graduated, so she starts taking night classes, partially to make her parents happy and partially because she wants that piece of paper rather badly, honestly. She doesn’t exactly need it for the local tech school’s culinary arts program, but a high school diploma never hurt anyone. Maybe, once Gene graduates and Dad’s better than he is now, maybe Portland will be an option again.

Dreams change, as we grow up. Eighteen wants different things than twenty, sometimes. It’s okay. It’s part of growing up. And sometimes twenty’s dreams get wrapped up in sixteen’s, in eighteen’s.

Tina’s culinary arts diploma is only two years long and it’s in the same town, so she’s still got some of her college fund left. And Louise is brilliant, she really is, so Tina has no problem giving the rest of her money up so Louise can go to some fancy school with a top rated Business Law program, because Bob’s Burgers is going to be a franchise, just you wait T, we’re going to be bigger than McDonald’s, the Belchers are going to rule the world. And Gene has no interest in higher education, so he gives his up too, and mom and dad are a little bit annoyed, and a little bit disappointed, and incredibly proud, all at once, because aren’t they always? And if Tina’s slipped off one day to hunt crabs with Zeke on the beach, and another day’s got Gene performing backup for Marshmallow’s drag queen friend, well that’s alright.

“We did pretty good, didn’t we Lin?” says Bob on evening, after Tina and Gene have both left for their respective apartments and Louise has gone to bed to dream of hostile takeovers.

“We sure did, Bobby.”


End file.
